Further proof "300" caters to base instincts of jubilated pro-war Americans

It doesn't get any sweeter than this for Hollywood financiers - further your geopolitical goals through propaganda, and get moviegoers to pay for their own brainwashing. --qrs

L.A. Times article provide confirmation of my belief as explained in my negative movie review...

The few, the proud among fans of '300'

By Tony Perry and Robert W. Welkos, Times Staff Writers

March 14, 2007

To the U.S. Marines serving at Camp Pendleton, there is much to learn from the Spartans, those heroic warriors of ancient Greece whom one might have called "the few, the proud" centuries before the Marine Corps adopted the motto.

In the hit new film "300," Marines see parallels between the current war in Iraq and the film's story, which tells of hopelessly outnumbered Spartans fighting heroically to the death against mighty Persian invaders at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.

There was periodic cheering Monday night at the Regal multiplex in downtown Oceanside, a few blocks from the main gate of Camp Pendleton, where young Marines attended showings of "300" on three screens. Some Marines nodded in recognition at lines in the movie that were familiar from their training — such as when King Leonidas instructs his son that the more troops sweat in training, the less they will bleed in combat.

"When the Spartan officer says that Spartans are all about protecting the guy to the left and right rather than being worried about themselves, that struck a chord," said Pfc. James Lyons, 20. "That's what they tell us all the time."

Fair assessment from the military point of view in evaluating the richly illustrious Greek military history.

Strange but unsurprising that the US military look up to the Spartan culture for their incredible valor yet prefer to overlook the cruelest quality of the real Spartans...

They prefer to look at the positive side of Spartan warrior persona while ignoring the dark side of the collective brute.

The truth of the history is so deep and complex it must be watered down and they eat it up like soup.

The R-rated film set box office records over the weekend, pulling in more than $70 million.

Meanwhile, the film has sparked outrage in modern Iran, which denounced the blockbuster's depiction of the ancient battle as "hostile behavior which is the result of cultural and psychological warfare." According to Reuters, poor-quality pirated DVDs are already circulating in Iran and a broad spectrum of government leaders and bloggers have denounced the movie as portraying the Persians as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks. Some elected officials in Iran are urging other Muslim countries not to show "this anti-Iranian Hollywood movie."

It probably comes as no surprise that Marines would like the film.

Because propaganda is a most persuasive form of communication.

Here is what Hitler have to say:

"...[T]he most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."

Mein Kampf (1925), volume 1 ch.6

It doesn't get more bizarre than the next paragraph.

"I barked and cheered my way through '300' with two fellow Marine infantry officers who have shed blood and tears in the back alleys of Iraq," said Ilario G. Pantano, whose book "Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" details his experiences in Iraq and his criminal case on charges of murdering two Iraqis. He was exonerated and is now a sheriff's deputy in New Hanover County, N.C.

At a time when mounting U.S. and Iraqi casualties in Iraq have alarmed the American public, the movie seems to celebrate war, militarism and battlefield carnage.

As the faithful sidekick Dr. Watson would say in an alternative Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mystery universe, "No shit, Sherlock!"

The clash between the Spartans and Persians at Thermopylae was classic war: force on force, enemies looked in each other's eyes, no hidden improvised explosive devices, one nation versus another.

To scholars, the Spartans are an extreme example of a society trained for war and soldiers who were expected to go into battle without questioning authority.

Haven't I heard about this before?

Oh yes: Mussolini and the Fascists. Nazis. The Red Army sacrificing in the masses for Stalin to crush the Germans. Japanese for the Empire of Japan.

It goes the same way for the Americans and even Israelis (some thousands and hundreds that perished in USA & Israel's illegal invasions and pounding of Iraq & Lebanon, respectively).

Whereas defending the country is imperative and crucial to national security, the soldiers are considered "expendable" for selfish & fundamentally nationalistic interests of the invading empires.

Unindicted mass murderer & war criminal (the person who advised Nixon to invade to bomb Cambodia & Laos en masse as National Security advisor) Henry Kissinger sums up the perverse, cowardly objective by referring to courageous & patriotic military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy, as reported by the Washington Post reporters who exposed the dirty deeds of Watergate burglary. [source]

History repeat itself ad infinitum -- treachery, military adventurism, economic & social debasement, rise and collapse of empires.

Kathryn Morgan, who teaches classics at UCLA, said there is much to learn from the Battle of Thermopylae.

"The Spartans were the marvel of the ancient world," she said. "For a long time, it was thought that you couldn't conquer Spartan soldiers in battle. This was a society that was totally devoted to creating fantastical warriors."

True, but the Spartans were one of the earliest "civilized" populations that introduce eugenics by infanticide and subjugating the "weak & inadequate" to brutality, perhaps slavery and termination.

By this method the Spartans ensure the brood is strong enough to be thoroughly trained to prepare for wars, small and big. Interesting example of what certain tribe is capable of -- rejecting luxury and enthuse in the electric mood for brute force when the opportunity arise to prove themselves to the world.

At the Battle of Thermopylae, the Spartans were hopelessly outnumbered, but they fight to the end, refusing to surrender.

"They fight even when they could have escaped," she noted. "They are making a statement of what it is to be a Spartan. It's a hugely tear-jerking thing." Furthermore, she said, history remembers these men as virtuous defenders of freedom and civilization. "That's the way the Greeks saw it. It made a huge impression at the time. These dead warriors were considered heroes ever after."

Heroes in valor and self-sacrifice to defend their land, yes. No question about it.

But human rights was an alien concept as the Spartan citizens -- reportedly forbidden to take up any profession other than arms -- had slaves as the engine of the Spartan economy.

Vincent Farenga, who teaches classics at USC, said via e-mail that he believes the movie "300" strikes a chord with young people because they are "very curious about the ancient world.

"As [the film] 'Gladiator' proved, film can burn right through the impediments of verbal histories and archaeological studies — but only if it has a 'look' and 'feel' that strikes young people as 'right on.' "

Again, propaganda is a powerful drug to deliver to the impressionable youth by the alluring element of eye and aural candy.

Reminiscent of a recruiting ad campaign incorporated as a full feature-length movie as well as efficiently designed psyop.

Bill Stutzman, an upper-school humanities teacher at Foundations Academy, a nondenominational Protestant K-12 school in Boise, Idaho, that stresses teaching of the classics, said one of his students showed a trailer for the film in class and described what it would be like living in Sparta as a woman.

"What we are seeing is that kids, from the youngest age on up, love these stories," he said.

How about a contradiction of what a Spartan woman's life is like?

Internet classics historian & ancient civilizations enthusiast Kallistos Alexandros (pen name) describe in an essay:

"The Spartan woman did not live with her husband until an age, which, in those times, was quite old. They had no shared life; he knew little of her daily life, her troubles, or her achievements. They did not share the myriad ups and downs of each day. They could never come to that deep understanding of each other which is the truest part of love...

Still she could go off to the gymnasium and exercise. It was written into the laws; the purpose was also written. She was permitted to exercise in order to strengthen her body that she might bear strong Spartan children, boys to be taken from her like colts from a brood mare, and girls to be strengthened for the same fate as hers. The young women who so espouse the Spartan social system fail to notice that there never was a queen in Sparta, there was never a woman ephor, and no older woman of experience ever sat in The Gerousia. There were, to be certain, some freedoms not enjoyed by women elsewhere in Hellas, but upon inspection, it becomes evident that all of these freedoms, in some way, served the men who granted them. The women of Sparta were as brainwashed from birth as the men. Their words and their actions display the patriotic party line of a totalitarian society...

She speaks to him [husband] formally, as she would speak to any Spartiate. She has paid the price of her social freedom. She has paid a high price indeed and paid in the currency of love."

Link: A Woman of Sparta

There is, of course, precedent for Americans showing a cultural cross-current in their movie preferences during wartime. In 1967, with the Vietnam War protests raging, "The Dirty Dozen" was hugely popular.

I liked "The Dirty Dozen" until towards the ending where innocent Germans perish in what is perceived by some as justified extermination due to their association with Nazism. A very good movie in spite of lousy morals on the context of self-justification.

They neglect to mention another similar movie called "The Green Berets" with John Wayne. So terrible its appalling display of jingoism push not only the envelope of message but shred and incinerate it -- no subtlety, all sledgehammer.

The film "300" and the Frank Miller graphic novel on which it is based celebrate a warrior cult that prizes physical fitness, discipline and bravery. The numbers are small, but the hearts are stout. The cult is part of the society it protects but yet is separate, even alienated, from it.

"Currently, the U.S. Marine Corps embodies the Spartan code, as shown in the Fallouja battles," e-mailed Bing West, former assistant secretary of Defense and author of two books about Marines in Iraq.

How frequently did "300" remind the young Marines in the movie audience of the Marine Corps?

"Every second," said Pfc. Zach Marino, 23. The Spartans and the battle at Thermopylae are an official part of Marine Corps mythology and self-image.

"Gates of Fire," Steven Pressfield's novelistic treatment of Thermopylae, has been on the commandant's reading list for enlisted ranks. Officers are asked to read Thucydides' accounts of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens.

It's good and educational to know the depth and rich complexity of ancient history, but it should also help instill a sense of moral character and logic.

Nazi Minister of Propaganda Dr. Joseph Goebbels have a point:

"Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character".

Of course, all current cultural concerns aside, there is also another possible explanation for the success of "300."

As West noted, Aristotle thought courage was the most important virtue of all because it makes possible all other virtues. There is a modern box-office equivalent.

"A good war movie is a good movie," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.

I beg to differ.

300 is an execrably bad movie not because of its conveyance of a particular message but because the movie has been done to death with the pummeling force of a sledgehammer in overstyled excess.

18th century English essayist Samuel Johnson nails it on the head with his view that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". He meant false patriotism.

By this, people feign admiration for courage as a virtue going to the movies as an inherent nationalistic obligation that gain the box office gold for the producers and executives and please the Elite that need re-igniting the faltering propaganda machine to pull the wool over the people's eyes again.

There is an anecdote that sum up the quality of the movie in a succinct text.

"Paper Moon" and "The Last Picture Show" director Peter Bogdonavich supplied the oral history of Stanley Kubrick that ran in the New York Times Magazine several years ago. In it, Jerry Lewis recounts a conversation he and Kubrick had when they were in adjoining editing suites, Kubrick working on 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lewis on another movie.

Lewis said after the glimpse of a rough cut to Kubrick "you cannot polish a turd".

Kubrick paused and thought carefully. He retorts with a characteristically dry humor: "You can if you freeze it."

In short, 300 is a highly polished turd specifically marketed towards the audience of certain demographics to satisfy their appetite for historical revisionism and "cool, fun, exciting" violent entertainment.

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Submitted by Nepos Libertas on Sun, 2007-03-18 10:01

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